Glasgow Uni shines a light
Glasgow University has produced a stonking good article on why people refer to illicit antiquities rather than illegal ones. One passage in particular shone like a beacon:

“Writers in this vein emphasise the point that while the criminal justice system tends to operate a strict binary distinction between criminal and non-criminal (or guilty and not-guilty), in reality some actions can be harmful but not illegal (Passas and Goodwin 2004). This is often because the criminal justice system has not yet caught up with the movement of contemporary sensibilities around harm (Hillyard et al. 2004). Some social actions may therefore be generally condemned, usually due to the perceived harm they cause, while not (perhaps yet) being illegal—they are ‘lawful but awful’ as some commentators have put it (Passas 2005).”

Excellent. Perhaps it is time Glasgow added “metal detecting” to their growing list of definitions. There would be illegal metal detecting (which is illegal) and illicit metal detecting (metal detecting without reporting to PAS, which is legal but officially described as harmful).

But of course, they would also need to define the middle bit – metal detecting that does include reporting to PAS. That definition presents the mother of all ticklish problems for in Britain such activity is labelled as “responsible” but abroad it’s still considered wrong and unacceptable. So come on Glasgow, you can’t possible have definitions that don’t include metal detecting. But how will you define it? Like PAS does or like all your overseas colleagues do?

4 comments

It came from here: http://www.archaeological.org/news/nad/10775
Sounds like a good initiative:
They explained the Site Preservation Program and the public was given AIA membership brochures, site preservation flyers, “Archaeology” magazines, and cultural heritage playing cards. Over 1,000 visitors came.

Yes, well spotted! Especially as you have to click on the middle photo and then click on the ‘expand’ option, and even then you had to blow-up the image! Still not sure whether you’re being ironic when you say “Who says Americans don’t do irony?!”… Anyway, thanks for this and the other commentary.

Still not sure whether you’re being ironic when you say “Who says Americans don’t do irony?!”…

Sincere. They could hardly have thought that photo was best practice. It’s awful isn’t it that the way we have presented our top archaeological site for decades can be held up to ridicule in Texas. We’re lucky they didn’t show some of the summer solstice images as well.